A Framework for Investigating the Impact of IT Infrastructure and E-Commerce Capability on Firm Performance

In recent rapidly changing competitive environment, electric commerce plays an important role on value chain. Many firms invest IT to ensure their success on e-commerce. In the strategic management field, many scholars considered that firms should have the new ability to reconfigure IT resource and create new e-commerce capability to face the new environment. However, how affect the firm performance when using information technology in supporting organizational e-commerce activities is still a question. The purpose of the research is to assess the business value of e-commerce capability and IT infrastructure in the context of electronic business at the firm level. Grounded in the resource-based theory of the firm, we develop a research framework to analyse the relationship among IT infrastructure, e-commerce capability and firm performance. Within this theoretical framework, we propose several propositions and define three key constructs to facilitate the development of the theory. At last, the paper points out some research suggestions for the future study related to the e-commerce capability and business value research.